Coming Soon

From 1965 through 1992, after the Watts Rebellion, South LA endured decades of major economic restructuring, with the disappearance of union-dense manufacturing jobs, an abundance of new precarious services jobs and high unemployment, particularly among young residents.

The passage of California Proposition 14 in 1964, while later found to be unconstitutional, rolled back anti-discrimination laws in the housing allowing for realtors to legally deny Black people the right to buy housing. The McCone Commission in 1965 found that conditions such as inadequate public transportation and education systems, poor health care, and poverty, were the simmering factors that led to the Watts riots in August 1965. The Commission, however, fell short by dismissing the common practice of police brutality and the racially-motivated harassment by police as ‘distrust’ by Black Angelenos, rather than a systemic problem. Its recommendations to address the problems facing Black people in South Los Angeles have either been rolled back after inadequate implementation or were never realized at all.

By 1992, the police officers who viciously beat Rodney King, the racially biased courts that acquitted them, and the society that explained away their crimes, even in the face of indisputable evidence. The LA Uprising also exposed the pained tensions that existed between the Black, Latino, and Korean communities. Korean store owner Soon Ja Du murdered Latasha Harlins only days after Rodney King’s beating and was later sentenced by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joyce Harlin to community service and probation while state prisons were being filled with Black bodies for non-violent crimes. Black, Latino, and Asians continued to experience serial violence subsequent to the acquittals of the LAPD officers. All these events and numerous others revealed the painful complexity of racial and economic injustice. It also revealed the real community trauma that residents in South LA have experienced in cycles of systemic neglect and disinvestment.

The platitudes to ‘Rebuild LA’ dissipated soon after the 1992 LA Uprising and ushered in a backlash by both conservative and liberal decision makers. At the federal level, crime bills expanded the prison system, ‘welfare reform’ decimated the social safety net and ‘immigration reform’ expanded deportation and punished immigrants. At the state level, legislators nearly bankrupted the State coffers to build the most well-funded prison system in the country. California voters used the ballot box to attack immigrants, end affirmative action, criminalize youth and adopt a three strikes law, end bilingual education, and prohibit gay marriage. Since little was done to create jobs, bring investment to South LA, or improve schools and other institutions by Rebuild LA - leaders in South LA were forced to build community trust and political power themselves.

April 1992: UPRISING

1992: Rebellions LA Riots

As a result of Rodney King ‘s LAPD beating & the 4 acquitted LAPD officers.

University Muslim Medical Association (UMMA)

Est. 1992 at UCLA & at Charles Drew University. UMMA 1st opened as a free clinic in the wake of the 1992 Riots.

1992-94:

Muslim medical students from UCLA work with Black political leadership from South LA to establish the UMMA Free Clinic, the first Muslim run clinic near Florence and Normandie.

Black Erasure

With the housing crisis of the 90s, people were priced out into the Inland Empire and Antelope Valley. Mass incarceration played a role during the late 80s and 90s and deindustrialization caused many to seek work outside of South LA.

1992: Rebuild L.A.

The 1992 Uprising spurs a tentative truce between several Bloods and Crips factions. A six-billion-dollar investment program called Rebuild L.A. is created, promising 74,000 new jobs in South Central. But these jobs do not materialize, and the program shuts down within a year.

1992: AGENDA

Established after 1992 LA uprising

New Laws & Props

Welfare Reform Law (’96);

People on Welfare organizes South LA residents (’98 – ’03);

Immigration Reform Law (’96);

Crime Bill (’94);

Prop 21 to Treat Minors as Adults in Court (’94);

Three Strikes Law (’94)

Prop 187 (’94);

Prop 209 (’96); and

Prop 227 Ban on Bilingual Ed (’98)

South LA leads the resistance against a sustained assault on the poor, people of color, and the disenfranchised, waged by policy and narrative shifts at the federal and state level in the 1990s. Nationwide, the Republican Party is seized by the right wing Gingrich Congress who pass a “Contract on America,” to establish extreme right wing policies, while the Democratic Party puts the Presidency in the hands of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, whose leaders reject New Deal social safety net and identification of the Democrats with Blacks and minorities. Together, they pass a massive crime bill, welfare reform, and immigration reform, gutting the social safety net and increasing deportation. The State of California follows suit, with the prison guards union becoming the #1 contributor to Legislative campaigns and steering billions of dollars to expand incarceration. California voters approve propositions to adopt 3 strikes laws and sentence minors as adults, end affirmative action and bilingual education, deny undocumented immigrants access to hospitals and schools, and ban gay marriage. In South LA, People on Welfare won major campaigns to address the failures of welfare reform and led a statewide coalition against the drug felon ban. South LA emerges as the hub of cross-racial organizing after the 1992 LA Uprising, is home to thousands of low-wage immigrant janitors who revitalize the national labor movement by winning new contracts, while forming new institutions dedicated to leadership development and civic engagement. The political center of the State of California is shifted and over the next 2 decades, pro-immigrant, pro-labor, pro-gay policies become mainstream. The foundation gets laid to begin reducing criminalization, recognize trans people and discrimination, and the need to address environmental racism — issues that persist into the new century.

1994: South LA Farm Opens

1994:

While waiting on UMMA’s construction to be completed, students collected donated equipment & Councilwoman Walters, raised more than $1.3 million in funds.

SAJE

SAJE, Est. 1996.

SALEF

SALEF, Est. 1996.

1996: Sept. 24th

UMMA sees its 1st patient. UMMA becomes a non-profit with its 1st Board of Directors.

1996:

UMMA Free Clinic sees its first patient and later becomes a Federally Qualified Health Center and is renamed as UMMA Community Clinic.

1998: A New Way of Life Founded

1998: A New Way of Life Founded

Proposition 187

Passes restricting services to undocumented immigrants including public education to children (held unconstitutional in 1997)

CD Tech

Rebuild L.A.

L.A. Alliance for a New Economy

Neighborhood Land Trust

Neighborhood Land Trust, Est., 2002.

2000:

55% of residents in South L.A. were Latino

40% African-American, and

Large % of small stores & shops owned by Asian-American immigrants

Black and Brown’s communities are subject to structural forces that lead to displacement from their neighborhoods and their countries and South LA residents continue to bear the brunt of the lack of public and private sector investment and employment security. For African Americans, the War on Drugs and criminalization policies push thousands from homes and into prisons. Thousands of Black middle-class residents are priced out of the neighborhoods of South Los Angeles through a housing bubble while the failure to address addiction, crime, and the under-investment and quality of public schools pushes many Black families out of South LA and to far-flung parts of the region and other Counties. Meanwhile, structural adjustment policies and free trade agreements push residents from Mexico and Central America out of their neighborhoods and into forced migration streams, including thousands of indigenous migrants who speak no English or Spanish and are victims of labor exploitation and discrimination from lighter skinned, Spanish speaking immigrants. Without legal status in the US, and inserted into the low-wage labor market, many of the new waves of immigrants settle in the City’s poorest and densest neighborhoods in South Los Angeles. Together, these forces accelerate the changing demographics of South Los Angeles.

All of Us / None Founded

All of Us or None Founded to organize formerly incarcerated and convicted people

2000:

Muslims community saved UMMA from closure, donating $400,000 in one evening.

2001 – 2013: Jan Perry – CD9

Mid 90’s – 00’s:

Center for Powerful Public Schools

2005:

South L.A. has the largest number of prison releases in the city. Even though the area contains 10 percent of the city’s population, it is home to one out of four of its prison parolees. (KCET)

L.A. Police

The L.A. police department responds by putting an injunction against the Bounty Hunter Bloods in 2004 and the Grape Street Crips in 2006, forbidding gang members from gathering. While homicide rates eventually drop, residents criticize police for making countless wrongful arrests. (KCET)

2003:

One in four African-American men are found to be sent to prison in their lifetime; California also has the largest number of female prisoners in the U.S.—the majority of whom are mothers of young children.

All of Us or None

Ban the Box campaigns launched by All of Us or None

2006:

UMMA is recognized by congress for its commitment to excellence as a model of Muslim philanthropy.

The largest economic collapse since the Great Depression wipes away community wealth and leads to massive extraction of assets from poor people in communities like South LA. Hundreds of thousands of people nationwide lose their homes in foreclosures or the equity in their homes, but these are disproportionately Black, Brown, and poor people, many of whom had been targeted by banks and speculators with predatory loans. A slow recovery of private sector jobs fails to dent double-digit unemployment in communities like South LA and public sector employment levels are kept low, as a result of the Great Recession. Immigration from Mexico reaches a net of zero.

2009:

UMMA is recognized by President Obama at a White House reception. UMMA was also invited to testify before the U.S. congress on healthcare reform

2008:

UMMA is the 1st Muslim American org. designated as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), a special status awarded by the U.S. government.

2012: Expo Line Opens

Dignity & Power Now

Dignity & Power Now, Est. 2011

2011:

UMMA expands its facility, doubling its capacity to serve the community

Social Justice Learning Institute

Social Justice Learning Institute, Est. 2008

Black Worker’s Center

Black Worker’s Center Est. 2012

'13-Present

2015:

Obama signs Ban the Box executive order for federal jobs

2017: President Trump Administration takes office

The two-term Presidency of the country’s first African American President leads to a sustained campaign by conservatives to undermine the legitimacy of his Presidency and harbor white nationalists, who eventually ride a wave of racist nationalism to elect Donald Trump President. In the first 3 months of his Presidency, Trump rolls back climate protections, authorizes oil pipeline projects that threaten the Native sovereignty and the environment, proposes $18 billion in domestic spending cuts, and attempts to institute a travel ban against refugees and entry by immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. With control of both houses of Congress, the ruling Republican Party attempts to pass legislation to strip more than 20 million Americans of health coverage secured through health care reform legislation signed by former President Obama.

2016: MLK Reopens

2016:

CA and LA County drastically reduce the use of solitary confinement in youth detention

2016: End of militarization of LAUSD Officers

2015:

UMMA receives a federal grant to expand their behavioral health services to the South L.A. community.

2014:

2014: UMMA is certified as a Patient Centered Medical Home).

2013:

UMMA opened its school-based Wellness Center & Community at Fremont H.S.

2013: Black Lives Matter created

And now – the community has risen from the ashes of 1992 and has created a platform for their future.